


Harry Potter and the Duke of Avalon

by marylou



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Squire's Tales Series - Gerald Morris
Genre: Gen, Terence being mysteriously omniscient, there are like no official st tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-16 18:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18697105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marylou/pseuds/marylou
Summary: Two worlds combine when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are joined by some new friends during the hunt for the horcruxes. But could bigger things be on the way?





	1. Chapter 1

As Harry wandered through the halls of Hogwart, he wondered how everything could have gone wrong so quickly. He’d only been trying to save Sirius, but somehow, everything had gone wrong and Sirius had been killed at the fiasco at the Ministry, and now Harry was trying to avoid everyone. After blowing up at Dumbledore earlier, he didn’t want to lose his temper at anyone else. Except for himself. He knew it was his fault that Sirius was dead. If only he had worked harder at occlumency and hadn’t angered Snape. And now his godfather was dead. He sighed.

“That sounds serious. Something the matter?” Harry turned towards the voice, frowning. “I don’t really want to ta-” He broke off when he caught sight of who had spoken to him. “You’re a portrait.” 

The man shrugged his painted shoulders. “What’s your point? Just because I’m some paint on a canvas doesn’t mean that I can't help you.” 

Harry shrugged. “I guess you’re right.” He looked closely at him. He had a pale, almost triangular face with arching brows and deep, ageless eyes that seemed to penetrate Harry even more that Dumbledore’s could. Like most of the paintings at Hogwarts, he looked like someone out of an old movie. The man raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair. “So, what seems to be the problem?” 

Harry laughed tiredly. “Everything.” He sat down on the floor, leaning his head against the wall. “My godfather just died, and it was all my fault.”

“Really?” The man asked. “Did you kill him, then?”

“I- I might as well have,” Harry gasped. “It was all my fault.” He pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them.

“How was it your fault?”

“He was trying to help me.

“So he was killed trying to protect you?”

“Yeah. If I hadn’t needed protecting, if I had been more careful, he would still be alive. 

The man watched him compassionately. “That does not make it your fault.”

“But it was! Everyone who gets close to me ends up dying!”

“But that’s not your fault. Who else are you referring to?

“My parents.”

“They are gone as well?”

Harry laughed dryly. “They’re dead too. They’ve been dead for years. And I don’t know how, but I’m sure it was somehow my fault.”

“How did they die?”

“They were killed by Voldemort.”

“Voldemort?”

Harry nodded. “He killed Cedric too,” he whispered.

“Was he somehow connected to the death of your godfather as well?”

“Yeah, Sirius- Sirius was killed by one of Voldemort’s followers, Bellatrix,” Harry almost spat out the name.

“So it sounds as if this Voldemort is the one responsible, not you. What kind of a name is Voldemort, anyway?”

Harry chuckled, wiping at his eyes. “That’s not his real name, it’s just the name he picked for himself.”

“What! Then why are you honoring him by calling him the name he chose? Call him by the name he was given at birth. He deserves nothing more than that.”

Harry frowned thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right about that. And I know he doesn’t like the name Tom Riddle.” He smiled slightly. “I’d like to see his reaction if I called him that to his face. 

“Harry?” He heard someone call from around the corner. “Harry, where are you? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Hermione, I’m coming,” Harry called back. He turned back to the portrait. “Thanks for, you know, talking to me.” He shuffled his feet awkwardly. “It- it really helped me out.”

“You are welcome, Harry. And anytime you need someone to talk to, just come and visit me. Or anytime you are bored, really. Very few people can find my portrait, and it can get lonely.”

Harry stood, combing his hand through his hair to straighten it. He smiled at the other. “I’ll do that.” As he turned to leave, the man picked up his book from where he had set it next to him. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Harry turned back to him. “What’s your name?”

The man looked up with a smile. “I am Terence.”

Terence watched Harry walk away until he turned the corner and was lost to sight. Harry might not know it, but he would be the catalyst for a lot of change in the wizarding world, change that was necessary to prepare the way for something bigger. Deep in the magic of Britain, something was stirring. Albion was preparing for the return of Camelot.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione walked anxiously in front of the Room of Requirement. “I need somewhere to study horcruxes, I need somewhere to study horcruxes, I need-” she broke off as the door appeared. She shifted her heavy bag on her shoulder and reached out to open the door. Once in the room, she looked around expectantly. In the middle of the room sat a large table with chairs around it, plump cushions resting invitingly on the seats. Bookshelves lined the walls, with magical knick knacks scattered along them. Hermione looked around in amazement. The selection of books was incredible! So many rare, old manuscripts that she had only heard of. She walked further into the room. She saw what looked to be a particularly interesting book and moved towards it. As she did, she passed an alcove in between two of the bookshelves. She gave the alcove a brief, cursory glance before moving past it. She had already pulled out the book that had drawn her attention and started to flip through it when she heard a voice say, “You know, that book is rubbish.”

Hermione gasped and looked up in surprise. There was no one there. She pulled her wand out. “What do you mean?” She looked around the room, bewildered. “Where are you? How did you get in here?”

The voice laughed. “Over here.” Hermione moved over to where the voice had come from, holding her wand out in front of her. She moved past the edge of a bookshelf and in front of the alcove that she had walked past earlier. Hanging on the wall of the alcove was a painting of a woman. She looked to be in her early twenties, wearing a medieval-looking dress.

Hermione’s brow furrowed. “What did you mean about the book?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “I would have thought that my meaning was fairly obvious. Don’t bother reading it. It’s nothing worthwhile; just a bunch of beauty tips.”

“How do you know?” Hermione asked. “Have you read it?”

The woman laughed. “Yes, I’ve read it. And I also know the woman who wrote it. She could have been a brilliant enchantress but wasted all her time and magic to improve her appearance. She learned magic with my mother.” She smiled. “So what kind of book are you looking for?”

Hermione bit her lip in thought. “I need to know about souls, specifically about-” she paused, “about splitting them. I couldn’t find anything in the Hogwarts library that would help me.”

The woman’s eyes hardened. “I will not help you create one of those abominations. Those- those _things_ desecrate the very fabric of magic. You will-”

“No, no, you’ve got the wrong idea,” Hermione interrupted. “I don’t want to know how to make them, I agree with you that they're abominations, it’s just that there is a dark wizard who has made a few and-”

“What?” the woman gasped. “He has made more than one? Is he insane?”

“Actually, yeah, he is kinda insane. Anyway, we need to know how to destroy them, and anything about them that we can use to find them.” Hermione looked up at the painting with hope. “Do you know of anything that might help me?”

The woman looked carefully at her before seeming to come to a decision. “I never went near anything to do with soul magic. It’s what caused my parents’ death. But if this is where the Room brought you, then the book you need must be somewhere in here. This is the Camelot room; all the books in here were written during Camelot’s renaissance.”

“Camelot? Really?” Hermione muttered, looking around the room more carefully.

“Yes, and the person most likely to know about soul magic is my great-aunt. That’s her book over there.” She pointed at a book sitting in the middle of one of the tables. It was large, with a leather cover. Hermione walked over and picked it up off the table, running her fingers over the spine. She walked back towards the painting with the book in her hand and opened the cover. Her eyes flitted up in shock. “It says that it was written by Lady Morgan. Lady Morgan of Camelot.”

“Yes,” the woman said reminiscently. “Great-Aunt Morgan. She taught me most everything I know about magic, as well as everything my mother knew.”

“But-” Hermione sputtered. “Morgan, as in Morgan le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister and mortal enemy?”

“Half-sister, yes, but I don’t know where you get the idea that she was Arthur’s enemy. She wasn't always the _nicest_ person to have around, but she also wasn't what I would consider evil. And she'd never have hurt Arthur. Her sister Morgause, on the other hand, is a different story.” Her face had grown dark.

“Huh,” Hermione frowned. “That’s not what my book on Camelot said. It didn’t even mention Morgause. I wonder what else they got wrong.” She looked up. “So is Morgause also your great-aunt?”

She shook her head. “No, Morgause was my grandmother.”

Hermione almost choked in surprise. “What? Your grandmother tried to kill King Arthur?”

The woman laughed at her surprise. “Yes, but my father and most of his brothers forsook their mother and swore loyalty to Arthur.” Her face darkened. “Morgause was the one who killed my parents.”

Hermione winced. “Oh, I’m sorry.” The woman shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s been more than thousand years since it happened. I’ve had time to get over it.”

“Look,” Hermione said. “I feel like we’ve gotten off to a bad start. I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Hermione Granger, and I’m a sixth year student at Hogwarts.”

The woman smiled. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Hermione. I am Lady Luneta.”

Hermione smiled, turning back to the book. “So do you know what part of the book I should read?”

Luneta shrugged. “Like I said, I never learned anything about soul magic, and I haven’t actually read that book. Morgan taught me before she bound her spells together into book form, so I don’t know where she placed it. My best guess is that if she included the information then she would have either put it in the middle or near the end. And there may be some kind of enchantment that you have to get past before you can read the most powerful section.”

Hermione looked up in surprise. “Is that possible? I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

Luneta nodded. “Oh yes, Morgan was very keen on not letting the unworthy read her words. You’ll likely have to prove that your intentions are good and you won’t use the information to empower yourself.”

“How do I do that?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Thanks, you’re a lot of help,” Hermione huffed.

Luneta smirked. “Well, I try.”

Hermione glanced down at her watch and jumped. “Oh, no, I have Potions right now! Thank you so much for the help, is it alright if I take the book out of this room?”

“As long as you return it when you are done, then yes.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll do that.” Hermione rushed out the door. Luneta watched her leave, smiling to herself. “I do hope she does return; I haven’t talked with anyone besides the other paintings since the first wizarding war.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Terence?” Luneta called. There was a brief moment before he replied. “What is it, Luneta? This had better be good; I was in the middle of a chess game with Barnabas the Barmy.”

“So sorry to interrupt,” Luneta huffed, rolling her eyes. “I had a visitor.”

“Hmm. Did you really.”

“Terence, are you even paying attention to me?”

“Of course. You just said that you had a visitor.”

“Right. Well, it was a young witch by the name of Hermione, and-”

“I think I’ve heard of her. Wasn’t she the one with the troll-”

“Terence! You interrupted me! Let me finish!”

“Of course,” he said smoothly. “So sorry to interrupt.”

She glared at him. “As I was saying, Hermione was trying to find information about soul magic. She said that there is a wizard who has been delving into it.”

His face grew grim. “I was afraid of that.”

“What!” she shrieked. “Why haven’t you done something about it?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Luneta, I am just a painting. There is very little that I could have done about it.”

“Well, you could at least have told someone what was going on, instead of just ignoring it and hoping that it would go away.”

He waved his painted hand at her. “Never mind that, tell me what you know.”

“Hermione said that there was a dark wizard, she didn’t tell me his name, or what he’s going by. You know, for some reason all the dark wizards or witches who try to take over the world make up a fancy new name for themselves that will strike fear into people’s hearts. I don’t know why. Maybe that’s the reason they turn dark, because they don’t like their name. Maybe it’s all just built up resentment towards their parents. With that in mind, I probably should have gone dark since Father kept saying he named me after his favorite dog.” She scowled.

“Focus here, Luneta!”

“Alright, there’s no need to snap at me! Anyway, going back to before I was so rudely interrupted, this dark wizard has split his soul into several separate pieces.”

“Several?” Terence choked out. “Are you sure?”

“It’s what Hermione said. She said that he has become somewhat insane as a result. I showed her Great-Aunt Morgan’s book.”

“Good, good,” he nodded distractedly. “That will definitely help her.”

“Are you going to do anything else to help them?” Luneta asked.

He looked pained. “As I said before, Luneta, we are just paintings, Luneta. We are not intended to take an active part in the lives of those who are still alive. I know it can hurt, to have to watch and not be able to do anything, but-”

She folded her arms, staring him down as if she knew something he thought he had hidden. “You know, for most of us, that’s not an issue. Most of the paintings are so old and have seen so much that they don’t even have the capacity to care about the living world anymore.”

“You do,” he pointed out.

She made a face. “Not as much as I should. But I am still bound by the spells we used to create this painting. I can give people hints, or advice, or tell them where to look. But I’m still just a memory of the real Luneta. A watered down, weaker version of Luneta.”

“Do you have a point with this?”

“Don’t try and dodge my point, Terence. I know that whatever spell was used to enchant your painting is different than the one used on mine. The memory saved in your paint is stronger. You’re not just a memory of Terence, saved inside a painting, it’s almost as if you are the real Terence, enchanted into a painting.” Her eyes bored into him. He looked discomfited.

She nodded, satisfied. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t have to. You’ve basically told me, anyway,” she told me, unable to keep the satisfied tone out of her voice.

He laughed awkwardly. “What were we talking about, before-” he made a vague hand gesture.

“We were talking about you helping destroy Tom Riddle’s horcruxes.”

He sighed heavily. “There is a spell I know that could help them. I just need to figure out how to contact them.”

She smiled. “I think I may have a solution for you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Inside his painting in the headmaster’s office, Dumbledore glanced up from his nap. “Young man,” he said. “I do not know how you have managed to enter my portrait, but I will have to ask you to leave.”

The other man looked amused, leaning against Dumbledore’s desk. “Actually, I had a few things that I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Oh, yes? And what is that?” Dumbledore peered at him over the tops of his half-moon spectacles.

“Horcruxes.”

There was a brief glimmer of shock in his eyes. “You are right. We do need to talk. How do you know about them? And, forgive me, but I do not think that I recognize you. Who are you?”

The man sat down on top of his desk, his long legs dangling off the edge. “My name is Terence. You probably won’t have seen my painting; it’s in a primarily unused portion of the castle. A friend of mine has a painting in the Room of Requirement, for when people need advice or someone to speak to. She recently spoke with a troubled young witch by the name of Hermione Granger.”

Dumbledore raised his eyebrow. “And she told her about the horcruxes?”

Terence shook his head. “She did not name them, only described them. But my friend’s parents were killed because of horcruxes, so she was able to recognize them from the description.”

“You’ve mentioned her, this friend of yours, a few times already. Who was she?”

“Her name is Luneta. She is King Arthur’s great-niece, and was trained by Lady Morgan herself.”

“Really? I had thought that Herpo the Foul was the only one to create a horcrux before Voldemort. That would have been perhaps one or two hundred years after the time of Camelot.”

Terence shrugged. “There were horcruxes before Herpo, but his was the first and only that is commonly known. But after my brief experience with them, I researched and studied soul magic. And now I would like to offer my assistance.”

“What kind of assistance can you offer?”

Terence smirked. “A ritual to locate horcruxes.”

Dumbledore stared at him in shock. “Is that even possible?”

He nodded. “It takes a while to prepare. And it does use blood magic, so by your standards it would be considered dark magic.”

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed. “At this point, I don’t care what means we use to defeat him. The outcome is the only thing that matters.”

“I imagine that Headmaster Snape could help us as well,” Terence mused.

“I’m sorry”?

“You know, since he’s still working for you.”

“I understand how you might not have gotten the news, since you’re a portrait, but Severus was the one who killed me. He betrayed us all. I thought that maybe I could save him, but his soul was already lost to me.” He sighed sadly, his eyes mournful.

Terence chuckled. “I don’t think you understand, Albus. My portrait was placed in this castle by its founders. I was good friends with Salazar himself. There are few things that happen here that are hidden from me.”

Dumbledore eyed him closely before relaxing. “Salazar? Really?”

He shrugged. “He was not how the stories made him out to be.”

Dumbledore sighed resignedly. “I suppose there is no point in denying it, is there. Yes, Severus is still loyal to me, and we should speak to him about this. He could likely help us with this ritual of yours.”

. . . . .

Severus sighed, collapsing onto his chair and letting his head thunk down onto the desk.

“Severus?” Albus asked, clearing his throat carefully.

“Do you know what he’s done now?” Severus said quietly. “He released some of the Weasley twins’ fireworks in the dining hall. Alecto’s hair caught on fire!” His mouth twitched slightly. “And while it was somewhat amusing, they’ll definitely make him suffer for it. The boy hasn’t any sense of self-preservation at all,” he grumbled.

“Neville Longbottom?”

He laughed brokenly. “Who else?”

Albus cleared his throat again. “Severus, I wonder if we could discuss something with you.”

“We?”

“I have had a visitor.”

Severus closed his eyes in resignation. “You’ve what?”

“I have had a visitor who thinks that he knows a way to locate the horcruxes.”

“Let me get this straight.” He straightened up in his chair. “Some stranger just waltzed in here and told you that he knows how to find and destroy the secret objects that no one knows about, the ones that are keeping the Dark Lord alive, and you just believe him.”

“Of course,” Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling.

“You-” Severus sighed. “And you didn’t think _for one moment_ that maybe they were a spy?” His voice was high with disbelief.

“Really, Severus, there’s no need to always assume the worst. And anyway, I-” He was interrupted.

“And anyway, we’ve met before.” Severus glanced up at the painting in shock at the man who had just walked onto the frame.

“You.” Terence smiled somewhat sheepishly.

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, surprised. “You’ve met. You didn’t tell me that,” he said to no one in particular.

Severus glared at him before turning back to Terence. “So? What’s your great idea?”

Terence leaned against Dumbledore’s painted desk, his arms crossed against his chest. “After some friends of mine died trying to destroy horcruxes many, many years ago, I studied and researched them, just in case I was ever confronted by soul magic again. I discovered an ancient druidic ritual, and adapted it to where it can locate horcruxes.”

“What does this ritual involve?”

Terence hesitated. “It requires a potion to be prepared and then drunk by the person seeking the horcruxes, and then a circle must be drawn with the blood of the supplicant beneath the new moon, and then-” He broke off.

Severus’ eyes narrowed. “And then what?”

“And then a vial of forcibly taken unicorn blood must be consumed by fiendfyre in the middle of the blood circle.”

Severus stared at him in shock before turning to Dumbledore. “This is your great plan? _Forcibly taken unicorn blood!”_

“Severus, the ritual does not require that _we_ be the ones to kill the unicorn.”

Severus glanced at Terence for confirmation. He nodded.

“So I just tell the Dark Lord that I need it for a potion? And what reason do I gave for not acquiring it myself?”

“I’m sure that Bellatrix would be delighted to procure it for you.”

Severus grimaced. “You’re right. I could pass it off as a favor, to try and get her on my side. I’m sure she would love to kill a unicorn. The Dark Lord has forbidden us from hunting in the forest, and she has been most unhappy about it.”

He exchanged a glance with Dumbledore before nodding slowly. “It don’t know if this ritual of yours will work, but it’s worth a chance. It can’t really make things worse than they are already. I’ll have to think of an excuse to need unicorn blood.” He hesitated. “There is another matter that perhaps you could help us with,” he said to Terence.

“Severus,” Dumbledore warned. “What are you doing?”

“When the Dark Lord went to kill the Potters,” he continued doggedly, ignoring Dumbledore’s glares. “His soul was so destroyed that a shard broke off and attached itself to the boy.”

Terence bit his lip. “Yes, I can see why that would be a problem. It would probably be best to get that cleared up while you get the preparations ready for the ritual.”

He glanced down at his hands, deep in thought, before looking up again. “When Voldemort was reborn, what ritual did he use?”

“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son. Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe.” Why do you ask?” Severus asked, his dark brows furrowed.

“And whose blood did he used. Was it Harry’s?”

“Yes. But why-” Dumbledore began before breaking off. “Oh. Do you think it would-?”

Terence shrugged. “I don’t know. But it could be a possibility.”

“What?” Severus snarled.

“It’s possible, that since Voldemort has Harry’s blood in his veins, that it would tie Harry’s life to Riddle’s.”

Severus stared at him. “Are you saying that the Dark Lord is Potter’s horcrux?”

“Well, not really, but if it helps you to think of it that way, then go ahead. The protection that Harry has, from Lily’s sacrifice, _might_ be kept alive in Riddle’s body. It’s just a guess right now, but it’s still enough to give us hope.”

“Yes, exactly.” Dumbledore nodded.

Severus sighed. “I suppose this means that we’ll have to contact Potter, doesn’t it. The world must hate me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to clarify what Terence is saying about his past experience with soul magic, if you've read The Legend of the King, (and if you haven't, then Spoiler Alert) then you may recall that Morgause approached Hecate asking for power, and to receive that power, she had to tie her life to something else, and that made me automatically think of horcruxes. In the end, Lynet and Gaheris, Luneta's parents, died while trying to kill Morgause, which is both my favorite and my least favorite part of the series. So that is the extent of Terence's experience with horcruxes.


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione sat at the table in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, flipping through the pages of her book when she heard the cough. It was coming from her beaded bag, sitting on the table. She dug through it, somehow managing to find the painting and pulling it out.

“Yes?” she asked. “May I help you?”

“I have a message for you,” Phineas Nigellus Black sneered at her.

“Well, you can tell to go bite a hippogriff’s behind,” Hermione said, looking down at her book again.

Phineas rolled his eyes. “It’s not from the current headmaster, it’s from Dumbledore.”

At this, Hermione looked up at him again. “Prove it.”

He disappeared behind the frame for a moment before coming back. “Your demonic cat once jumped on the headmaster’s robes and ate the lemon drops from his pocket.”

She set the book down on the table, placing a piece of parchment in as a bookmark. “Harry! Ron? Get down here!”

There was the sound of thundering feet on the stairs, then Harry and Ron stumbled into the room. “Hermione? What’s wrong?”

“He says he has a message for us from Dumbledore,” she nodded at Phineas. “And he gave me proof that he actually is from the headmaster.”

“What?” Harry asked. “Dumbledore told  _ him _ things? Important things?” He looked hurt.

“Actually, I don’t really have a message,” Phineas interrupted.

“Then why’d I even have to come down here?” grumbled Ron.

“I’m supposed to bring someone else in through this painting. They have information for you.”

Hermione looked surprised. “Can you do that? I didn’t think it was possible.”

Phineas shrugged. “Not for this man. He’s the exception to almost every rule.”

Hermione frowned in bemusement. “What do you mean? Who is it?”

He looked amused. “Impatient little mudblood, aren’t you.”

“Hey!” Ron gripped his wand tightly, glaring at Phineas. “What do you mean by-” He was interrupted by another voice.

“Thank you Phineas, that will be all.”

He smiled ingratiatingly and bowed slightly before moving out of the frame. He was soon replaced by another man. He was tall with dark hair and a smooth, triangular face under high arching brows. His eyes were the brightest and clearest that Hermione had ever seen. She thought that he had an almost timeless look.

“What?” Harry gasped. “Terence?”

“Really?” Hermione turned to him in surprise. “Harry? Do you know him?”

“I- it was fifth year, after Sirius-” Harry stared at Terence. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Terence began smoothly. “I believe that I may have information about horcruxes that could help you.”

“Horcrux? What’s a horcrux?” Harry asked innocently. 

Terence raised a slender brow. “The soul fragments that you are hunting.”

Harry hesitated. “How do you know about that?”

Terence gestured at Hermione.

“Me?” she asked in shock.

He nodded. “You told my friend about them.”

“Your friend?”

“Luneta.”

Hermione blinked in surprise. “Really? Does that mean that you’re from Camelot as well? Were you a knight? Or a lord?”

“No, I was a squire.” He smiled slightly, as if there was an inside joke that only he knew about. “I was Sir Gawain’s squire, Arthur’s nephew. And when my friends, Luneta’s parents, were killed because of a horcrux, I learned all that I could about them.”

“Hermione?” Harry asked. “Who’s this Luneta?”

“Right before the headmaster’s funeral, I went to the Room of Requirement, looking for a book, or any kind of information that I could find, and there was a portrait of her.”

Ron spoke up for the first time. “Not to be rude or anything, but why should we trust you? I mean, I’m not going to do whatever you say just because Harry met you a few years back. What proof do you have?”

Terence looked amused. “So suspicious,” he mused. 

“With good reason,” responded Ron.

Terence nodded. “Would Dumbledore’s word be enough for you? I will need your absolute trust in this, especially when I bring in another individual to help.”

Harry shrugged. “I guess? Yeah, if you could somehow manage to prove that you had Dumbledore’s trust, that would be good. But I’m not sure how you’ll do that.”

“I can bring him here.”

“You can?” Harry looked hopeful.

“Just his painting,” Terence warned. 

“See, that’s one thing that I don’t understand,” Hermione put in. “It shouldn’t be possible for you to bring another painting with you. It shouldn’t even be possible for you to be here in someone else’s painting.”

Terence shrugged, a mysterious smirk on his face. “I guess I’m just special. I’ll go get Dumbledore.” He turned and left the painting.

Behind him, Hermione frowned. “I feel like he was avoiding that question.”

Harry shrugged. “As long as he actually knows a way to help us, I don’t really care.”

A few minutes later Terence was back, this time with Albus Dumbledore crowded into the frame with him. “Harry, my boy!” he beamed. 

“Sir?” Harry asked in shock. He hadn’t actually expected Terence to bring him with him.

“Harry, my boy, listen to Terence,” Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling. “I believe that he just might know how to finish this.” His eyes grew even more serious, losing their twinkle. “Harry, there are a few things that you must know first. Things that perhaps I should have told you sooner.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Harry, there are a few things that you must know first. Things that perhaps I should have told you sooner.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Harry asked.

Dumbledore steepled his fingers in front of his face as he leaned back in his armchair. “Harry, my boy, have you ever wondered why you share a connection with Voldemort?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“We must get rid of that connection before Lord Voldemort can be destroyed.”

“Ok,” Harry frowned. “I guess that sort of makes sense. But why?”

Hermione gasped. “But- Professor Dumbledore, does that mean-” 

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid it does, Miss Granger.”

“Wait, what?” Harry looked confused. Hermione turned to him, tears beginning to glisten in her eyes. “Harry, I think your scar is a horcrux.”

“Wait,” Ron interrupted. “Does that mean Harry has to die?”

“Not necessarily.”

“But how?” Harry burst out. “How is my scar a horcrux? Why in Merlin’s name did Voldemort do that?”

“I don’t believe it was intentional, Harry. My theory is that, when Voldemort went to kill you as a child, his soul was so fractured and broken that when his killing curse rebounded, it broke an extra piece off of the whole. That piece of soul attached itself to the only living thing left in the house: you. This explains how you have always been able to sense Voldemort’s emotions and how you are a parselmouth.”

Harry had grown white. He sat down suddenly in one of the chairs. “I have to die, don’t I,” he said softly.

“Not necessarily,” Dumbledore repeated. His eyes twinkled mysteriously. 

“You know, it’s not necessary to be so dramatic,” Terence interrupted. “The plan is for you to overdose on the Draught of Living Death,” he said to Harry. “Resulting in a temporary cessation of life, and then you would be resuscitated using a combination of the Wiggenweld potion and the muggle method.” 

“You mean like CPR?” Hermione asked.

“Exactly,” Dumbledore twinkled.

“Great,” Ron said. “It’s a plan. But who’s going to be the one to off Harry?” 

Harry winced. “Can we please not talk about this so flippantly?”

“I mean,” Ron continued, “There’s no way I could do it. And I don’t think Hermione would either. So how are we going to do it?”

“Ah, yes,” Dumbledore said. “That is another thing that I must discuss with you.”

Harry frowned. “What?”

“I believe Severus would be willing to do it.” The trio stared at him in shock before Ron broke. “Of course he’d be willing to  _ kill  _ Harry, it’s all he’s ever wanted! And then he’d go running back to his master, to brag about how he’d kill Harry, and  _ how could you even consider it!” _ he yelled the last bit at the portrait, accidentally getting spit on it. Dumbledore didn’t seem to notice the Weasley spittle freckling his portrait.

Hermione grimaced and cleaned the portrait with her wand. “Ron’s right. That’s a horrible idea. Right, Harry?” she turned to him. He had a pensive look on his face. “Harry, tell me you’re not considering doing this.”

“I don’t know,” Harry said slowly. “Do we have any other solution? What do you think?” he asked Terence. 

The mysterious man had a look of disgust on his face. “I think this would have gone much smoother if I had come alone.” He ignored Dumbledore’s hurt look. “Severus Snape is a spy.”

“He killed Dumbledore,” Harry stated coldly, his eyes unbelieving. 

Dumbledore spoke up. “Because I asked him to.”

“Why would you do a stupid thing like that?” Ron asked. “I mean, that’s a really stupid thing to ask someone to do. Why would anyone do that?” 

“Your arm,” Hermione said, a look of dawning realization growing on her face. Dumbledore nodded sadly. “Miss Granger is correct. The curse on my arm was fatal. It had been contained for the interim, but in the end, I would have died from it within less than two years.”

“So you thought that Snape-assisted suicide was your best option?”

“Being the death eater to kill me, Voldemort’s greatest enemy, has sealed Severus’ spot in Voldemort’s inner circle for quite some time. And, I must confess, I hoped that Severus would be named as the new headmaster so that he could protect the students.”

“I thought Harry was his greatest enemy.”

“Well, I wouldn’t really say that,” Terence said. “I don’t think that Riddle fears Harry so much as he fears what Harry might become. He’s more like Riddle’s obsession.”

“But Snape  _ hates  _ Harry,” Ron whinged, returning to the previous topic. “”How can we trust him with this?”

Dumbledore peered over the tops of his spectacles at the three, looking through the painting at them. “Severus does not hate Harry as much as he seems to.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Ron grumbled. “‘ _ Not as much as he seems to’ _ . Cause he sure seems to hate Harry an awful lot.”

“There is much about Severus that you do not know.’ He smiled mysteriously. Ron stared at him. “Are you going to tell us?”

“No,” Terence interrupted, “He’s not. That’s Severus’ personal business, and he should be the one to choose what you know and what you don’t.”

“Of course,” Dumbledore said. “I wouldn’t dream of breaking his trust.”

“There’s nothing we can show you to prove that Severus is on our side,” Terence said to the three Gryffindors. “You will just have to take our word for it.”

Hermione stood up. “Excuse us.” She grabbed Ron and Harry and dragged them out of the room. They had a whispered conversation in the corner of the room, a hastily cast muffliato protecting them. Terence and Dumbledore watched placidly from the portrait. After a few minutes, they finished their conversation and returned to the portrait. Harry glanced at the two others at his side and squared his shoulders. “Ok.”

Dumbledore’s face brightened. “You believe us?”

“I- I guess, yeah, we do.” Despite Harry’s statement, Ron still looked slightly disgruntled.

“Wonderful!” Dumbledore beamed. “I shall go fetch Severus and tell him that you agree with our plan.” He left through the side of the portrait, presumably back to his painting in Hogwarts, leaving Terence behind. 

“Wait,” Harry said. “When he said fetch Snape, does that mean he’s going to bring Snape  _ here? Now?” _

Terence looked at him thoughtfully. “That was the plan. We do need to make a few plans.” He eyed their expressions. “Do you need some time to think about things first before you see Severus?”

The three exchanged glances, and then Harry answered for them. “Maybe it’d be best if we just got this over with.”

Terence smiled. “Wonderful. Albus and Severus should be here in just a few minutes then.”

In the end, maybe it would have been better if they  _ had _ waited to see Snape again. Despite the fact that they now had Dumbledore’s reassurance that he had  _ asked _ Snape to kill him for whatever asinine reasons, there were still a lot of hard feelings all around. As it was, wands were drawn at multiple times and only the peacemaking skills of Hermione and Terence stopped the actual shedding of blood.

But now that Harry knew the truth about what his connection to Voldemort was, he really just wanted to get things over with, so they started making preparations to free him of the horcrux as soon as possible.


	7. Chapter 7

Harry gasped desperately. His chest felt as if it had been trampled by a hippogriff. It took him a couple seconds to remember where he was, but then he recognized his room at Grimmauld Place, and the concerned faces of Hermione and Ron hovering over him. Terence, Dumbledore, and Luneta, who Terence had introduced them to, crowded around the edge of a painting on the wall.

Snape started packing up his potions tools while Hermione and Ron dashed to Harry.

“You alright, mate?” Ron asked loudly, still keeping an eye on Snape. Despite the fact that they had all agreed to this, none of them felt entirely comfortable with it.

Harry nodded. “I’m fine,” he said raspily. He cleared his throat.

“How does your head feel?” Hermione raised a tentative hand to his forehead, pulling it back quickly with a concerned look at Harry.

Harry made a face. “Well, my headache’s gone.”

“You didn’t say you had a headache.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t realize I had a headache. And my head feels, I don’t know, lighter now. Like there’s less clutter.”

Snape closed his bag with a snap. He grabbed Harry’s chin, staring in his eyes. Harry recognized the familiar onslaught of legilimency and tried to pull away, but Snape’s grasp held him firm.

“Hey!” Ron protested. Snape released Harry and nodded.

“There’s no sign of any connection to the Dark Lord.”

“It worked, then?” Terence asked from his portrait.

Snape nodded. “It seems to have.”

“So we can go after the other horcruxes now,” Hermione said.

“No,” was the only thing Snape said.

“Excuse me?” Harry said.”

“ _We_ ,” he gestured at himself and Terence, “will find the other horcruxes. He knows a spell to locate them. You lot,” he gave them a disdainful glare, “will stay here and not get involved.”

After the argument had descended into a shouting match that was only broken by Hermione silencing both Harry and Snape, it was decided, much to everyone’s dissatisfaction, that the kids would help with the planning and Snape would be the one to do the actual finding and destroying with the Sword of Gryffindor, which, according to Snape, had been imbued with basilisk venom and had been used by Dumbledore to destroy the ring.

Terence and Dumbledore were the only ones who seemed satisfied with the plan, and Snape left with a dramatic glare and twirl of his cloak.

. . . . .

“Blimey,” Ron said. “ _Gringotts?_ How are we supposed to break into Gringotts?”

They had done the locating spell (or rather, Snape had done it alone and then brought the results back to show the others). Ron, Hermione, and Harry had been sitting at the table at Grimmauld place when he apparated onto the front doorstep, came into the kitchen, and, without a word, dropped a piece of parchment onto the table.

On the paper, written out in a flourishing script was,

_**“Lestrange vault, Gringotts Bank.** _

  _**The Room of Hidden Things, The Room of Requirement, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.** _

_**The Master Library, Malfoy Manor”** _

They all stared at the paper. “Well, at least we know how to get into Hogwarts,” Ron said. “So that one should be easy.”

“Terence has a plan for the first one,” Snape said, tapping the top line with a slender finger. “A foolish one that will never work.” He didn’t say anything else.

“Um,” Hermione said. She glanced over at Ron and Harry for help, but they just shrugged. “What’s his plan?” she finally asked Snape.

He scowled at her. “He wants to talk to the goblins.”

She frowned. “He wants to talk to them?”

“Yes.” The word seemed forced out. “He wants to explain things to them. Explain that there’s a horcrux that needs to be destroyed and ask them nicely to give it to us.”

Ron snorted. “I know enough from History of Magic that that would never work.”

Hermione glared at him. “How would you know, Ron, you never paid attention in History of Magic.”

“Well, no, but I heard enough to know about all the wars that started because the goblins misunderstood something.”

“What does Dumbledore think?” Harry asked suddenly.

“He’s all for it,” Snape said glumly. "Of course he is. Stupid fool." He mumbled something unintelligible.

“Well, Terence has been right before. What would it hurt to try it?”

Snape answered with his usual optimism. “It could be a trap. Terence could be a spy. We could all be captured, tortured and killed. Millions of people could be killed.”

But despite Snape’s objections, he soon found himself standing in front of Gringotts with Terence’s painting in a bag, trying to talk to the goblins. After some threats from both sides, they let him into a private room and he pulled the portrait out. After that, the goblins were eager to please. Terence seemed a bit awkward with all of the sycophantic adulation. It left Snape wondering who exactly he had been when he was alive.

All in all, it only took three hours before the negotiations were finished and the horcrux was located and destroyed.

Terence was a bit too smug about being right.

* * *

That evening, they sat in the kitchen again, discussing the other horcruxes. “I am almost confident that the one in Malfoy Manor is his snake, Nagini,” Snape said.

“A living creature?” Terence raised his eyebrow. “That’s very unstable.”

Snape answered grimly. “So’s the Dark Lord. The snake used to be just his pet, and then sometime last year he stopped letting it out of his sight. That was also when he ... changed. His physical features became more serpentine, and the snake began to seem to understand us when we spoke.”

“It could be,” Terence said doubtfully.

“And,” Snape added triumphantly, “he has ordered Bellatrix to defend it with her life.”

“That definitely seems likely, then,” Hermione said. “Is there any way for you to get to it despite Bellatrix? Maybe poison in its food?”

Snape sneered at her question. “Not without being killed.”

“What about the one at Hogwarts? That one should be easier. We can decided what to do with Nagini when it comes to it,” Harry suggested.

Snape sneered at him. “Easy? Have you ever tried finding a room that you’ve never been to? And I’ve never even _heard_ of the Room of Requirement. It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

A grin slowly spread across Harry’s face.

“You mean you’ve never heard of the Room of Requirement?” he said facetiously. “I thought that everyone knew about it.

Snape glared at him. “Am I to assume, Potter, based on your flippant attitude, that you know of its location?”

Harry’s smirk got even bigger. “Of course.”

“Well? Where is it?”

“It’s called the Room of Requirement, or sometimes the Come and Go Room. It’s on the seventh floor. You have to walk past the wall three times and think about what you need, and the room will provide it for you.”

“So we just go up to this wall and ask it politely if it happens to have one of the Dark Lord’s horcruxes?”

“I’m not sure,” Hermione frowned. “But I don’t think so. It says here, “The Room of Hidden Things.’”

Hermione glanced at Harry. “I think that’s where you hid the, you know-”

“No, Miss Granger, I don’t know,” Snape said dryly. “What did Potter hide there? Do I even want to know?”

“Is that true, Harry?” Terence asked.

“I-” Harry glanced at his two friends. “Yeah, I put something there, if it’s what I think it is. But there was lots of junk there. It would take months to go through it all.”

Snape threw his hands in the air. “Oh, wonderful! Maybe the Dark Lord will go on vacation and give us some extra time.”

“Severus,” Terence said, stifling Snape’s outburst. “How good are you at sensing dark magic?”

Severus glared at him with affront. “You already know. We've already discussed this.”

Terence nodded. “Then try and keep the drama to a minimum. You already know how we are going to find it, and you already know that it shouldn’t take too long.”

“Shouldn’t. There’s always a possibility of error.”

“In which case it would be your error and you would be fully capable of taking responsibility for it yourself.”

Snape rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. Terence took it as acquiescence.

“Then Severus will come back to the castle tonight to find it.”

. . . . .

Harry watched Snape walk out the front door of Grimmauld Place. As soon as the door had shut behind him, Hermione said, “Ok, Harry, what is it?”

“I don’t like this,” he said.

Hermione tried to reign in her impatience. “What don’t you like?”

He slumped in his chair, avoiding her eyes. “We’re not doing anything. _Snape’s_ the one who keeps destroying the horcruxes. Dumbledore gave me this job. It’s got to be me.”

“Well,” Hermione tried, “Dumbledore did ask Snape to help us.”

“Yeah, _help._ He asked Snape to help us, not to do everything himself.”

Ron shrugged. “I don’t really like it either, mate, but you gotta admit, he’s done a lot in the past couple of days.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Harry flinched away from him.

“He’s doing _my_ job!” he yelled at them before storming out of the room.

. . . . .

Harry patted his pocket, checking for the third time that he had his wand. He carefully opened the door and slipped out, letting the door click shut after him.

“What are you doing?”

Harry almost screamed. “Ron?” he hissed, glancing down the hall at the other bedrooms. “I thought you were- what are you doing?”

“I asked you first.” Ron folded his arms sternly.

“I was- uhh-”

“Going to sneak into Hogwarts so you can find that horcrux yourself?”

Harry let the tension slip out of his shoulders. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“‘Cause I know you. Now let’s get going. Hermione’s been waiting a while.” Ron headed to the stairs.

“What? Hermione knows too?” Harry followed Ron.

Ron shrugged. “Yeah.”

“And she’s going along with it?”

“ _She’s_ just going along to keep you two out of trouble,” Hermione called from downstairs. “There’s no point in trying to be quiet, Harry. We both know what you’re planning.”

“I just- I just have to do this, guys,” Harry said. He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “It’s just that it was my job, the job that Dumbledore gave me, and I can’t let other people do _my job_.” He looked at them. “Don’t you agree?”

“No,” Hermione said. At the same time, Ron said, “Yes.” Hermione glared at him. He shrugged. “What? I _do_ agree with him.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “But let’s not start all that again. We’ve already discussed it. There’s nothing I can say to convince the two of you not to break into Hogwarts but I don’t want either of you killed, so I guess I’m going to have to come along.” She turned to Harry. “How were you planning on getting in?”

“Um. I just thought I’d call Dobby.”

There was a loud crack, and Dobby appeared in the room. “Harry Potter has called for Dobby? What can Dobby do for Harry Potter?” Dobby was jumping with excitement.

“Hey, Dobby,” Harry said. “Can you take us with you to Hogwarts?”

Dobby frowned. “Harry Potter must not go to Hogwarts. Hogwarts is bad place. Dangerous. Harry Potter could be killed.” He shook his head emphatically, his ears flapping.

Harry crouched down so he could look Dobby in the eyes. “Dobby, I need to get to Hogwarts because I need to find something that will help us to defeat Voldemort. It’s very important.”

Dobby considered it, then nodded. “Dobby will bring you to Hogwarts.”

“Can you bring us to right outside the Room of Requirement?” Hermione asked.

“Dobby can do that. Is you _all_ going?”

Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione for confirmation, then nodded. “Yeah, we’re all going.”

Dobby held out his hands to them. Harry and Hermione clasped hands with him, and after a moment of dithering, Ron grabbed onto Dobby’s wrist. There was a loud crack, and Harry felt the familiar pull of apparition, and then they were in the corridor outside of the Room of Requirement.

“Thanks, Dobby,” Harry said. “You’ve helped us a lot.”

Dobby beamed at him. “Dobby is always happy to help.” Then he was gone.

“Barmy as ever,” Ron muttered, but there was a trace of affection in his voice.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry eyed the stone wall where the room was hidden. “Right, then. Here we go.” He paced past it three times, thinking, “We need the place where everything is hidden.” After his third walk past, the door appeared.

Inside the room, they looked around. “Blimey,” Ron said. “How are we supposed to find it? We don’t even know what it looks like.”

“Accio horcrux!” Hermione said. When nothing happened, she shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

“How was Snape planning on finding it again?” Harry asked.

“He was going to sense the dark magic.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“No,” Hermione answered. “I don’t know if there’s a spell, or if it’s just a feeling, or what. You’ve had the most experience with horcruxes, Harry. Maybe you could, I don’t know, walk around and see if anything feels like a horcrux?”

“Hermione Granger, telling someone to just _feel_?” Ron scoffed. “Now I’m imagining things.”

She glared at him. “Well, do you have a better idea?”

He did not have a better idea, so Harry started walking around. Ron and Hermione followed him, sometimes pointing out an object that looked dark. Harry had no idea what he was looking for, and was starting to regret his impulse to sneak into Hogwarts. It was starting to only seem like a waste of time.

After thirty minutes of wandering the aisles, they were in an area that Harry recognized. “Hey, I think this is where I hid the Prince’s book!”

“Wasn’t that closer to the door?” Hermione asked. “Are we going in circles?” she looked worried.

Harry shrugged. “I have no idea.” He prodded the bust of the ugly old warlock experimentally and the tiara fell off.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Harry, please try not to make a mess.”

“I just wanted to know what it was made out of,” he mumbled. He bent down to pick the crown up.

“Ow!” He dropped it again. “It bit me!”

“How could a tiara bite you?” Ron asked dubiously.

There was a look of dawning revelation in Hermione’s eyes. “It can if it’s a horcrux.”

They all looked down at the crown. “You know,” Hermione began. “Rowena Ravenclaw was rumored to have a diadem. It was supposed to increase the intelligence of the wearer, but it’s been lost for centuries.”

They all looked at the diadem. “You think that’s it?” Harry asked.

“It’s the most likely thing we’ve found,” Ron said. “Is there any way to find out for sure?”

“Well,” Harry said, “the diary was sentient. And while this may not be quite as alive as the diary was, since the diary’d been feeding off of Ginny for a while, it’s probably at least a little bit sentient. So maybe it’ll react when we try and destroy it.”

Ron grimaced. “You mean it’s going to try and defend itself?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Oh, wonderful. So how do we kill it?”

They all stared at each other. “We probably should have thought of that before we came here,” Harry said weakly.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this!” Hermione said, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. “I _knew_ we would need a way to destroy it! I don’t know how I managed to forget such a simple thing!”

“Snape used the Sword of Gryffindor,” Harry said. “All we need to do is find the sword, and we’re set.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Hermione asked him. “We have no idea where it is, and we can hardly ask Professor Snape.”

Harry was lost for an answer. He looked around the room in the hopes of finding an answer, and then remembered where they were.

“We need the sword of Godric Gryffindor,” he said loudly.

“I know we do, but how are we going to get it,” Hermione said snarkily.

“Hermione, where are we right now?” Harry asked her.

“Hogwarts. In the Room of Requirement- oh. You think the room could give us the sword?”

“It’s worth a try.” They waited a bit more, thinking about how desperately they needed the sword. Nothing happened.

“Maybe we need to leave so it can reset,” Ron suggested. He grabbed an iron fireplace poker that was leaning against a stack of cauldrons and used it to tentatively pick up the diadem. They left the room, and Harry paced in front of it again, thinking about how he needed the sword. The door appeared, and he opened it to a room. It was much smaller than the room they had found the diadem in, about the size of a classroom, with a tall ceiling. There was a window on the wall facing the door, which shouldn’t have been possible considering the Room of Requirement was in the middle of the castle. In the center of the room was a round wooden table.

Harry stepped into the room, and Hermione and Ron followed. The table looked ancient. It was covered in runes that Hermione whispered were even older than the ancient runes she had studied. Harry started walking around the table. “Hey, there’s something here.” He picked up a leather scabbard, decorated with some kind of gemstone.

“Is that Gryffindor’s sword?” Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. “No. It looks older.” He carefully pulled the sword a few inches out of the sheath. The blade glistened.

“Hey, Ron,” Harry called. “Bring the diadem over here.”

“What do you think, mate?” Ron asked. “Would it work, even though it’s not Gryffindor’s?”

“Well, the Room must have given it to us for a reason. We might as well try.”

Ron brought the diadem over, still dangling from the tip of the poker. He placed it on the floor and then stepped back. Harry stood hesitantly over it.

“Should I stab the middle of it, or try and cut it in half…? What do you think?”

“The main goal is to destroy it so much that it can’t hold the soul shard anymore. That leads me to think that cutting it in half would be the best way to go about this,” Hermione said.

“Right then,” Harry said, staring down at the diadem. The jewels glinted at him. He pulled the sword out of the sheath and held it up, ready to let it fall, when the diadem hissed at him. He swallowed, staring at it.

“Harry, what are you waiting for?” Hermione hissed at him. “Destroy it!”

Dark smoke started spewing from the diadem, and Harry remembered what had happened when the piece of soul in the diary came out, and before the smoke could form into anything, he swung the sword down, cutting the diadem cleanly in half. There was a shriek, and the smoke cleared. They all looked down at it.

“Is that it?” Ron asked. Harry prodded the pieces of the diadem with the tip of the sword. “I think so.”

“Could I have a bag, please?” Hermione said to the open room. She picked up the small cloth bag that appeared on the ground and carefully levitated the pieces of the diadem into it. “We can always have Professor Snape or Terence confirm it.”

Harry winced. “Do we have to?”

“Well, we’re going to have to let them know about it sooner rather than later, because Professor Snape was planning on searching the Room of Requirement tomorrow.” She glanced down at her watch. “Or rather, today.”

Harry frowned, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he sheathed the sword and placed it back on the table where he had found it. “Thank you,” he said to the room.

They left the room with the broken horcrux in the bag. “Harry, call Dobby. We should be getting back,” Hermione said.

“Too late,” someone cackled at the end of the hall. Harry spun around to see the Carrow siblings standing behind him. “Stupify!” he cried out. Ron and Hermione reacted to his cry and also spun around, firing spells at the two death eaters.

The spells bounced off of a powerful shield charm.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that, Potter!” Alecto Carrow said. She slid her right hand up her left wrist, her fingers caressing her arm in a way that made Harry feel uncomfortable. When her fingers touched her mark, Harry expected something dramatic to happen, but nothing did. It was very anti-climatic.

“He’s coming for you,” her brother said. “Better run, Potter.”

“Never!” Harry snapped at him. He went on the offensive again, firing spells at them while dodging their responses. He tried to stay close to Hermione and Ron, but eventually, in the flurry of spells flying through the air, the trio were separated. Ron and Hermione faced down Amycus Carrow and Harry battled Alecto Carrow. Alecto kept edging him farther and farther away from his friends until she had maneuvered him around the corner and he could only hear them.

One of Harry’s stunners hit her, but as she fell to the ground, Voldemort stepped up to take her place. “Shall we, Harry?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t know when Voldemort had appeared or how long he had been watching Harry’s duel with Carrow, but that hardly mattered now. His only response was to attack. He was tired of Voldemort’s tendency to gloat and banter with him. He was in enough trouble as it was.

They battled back and forth until one of Voldemort’s spells slipped through his defenses. Harry watched in horror as his wand flew out of his hand and into Voldemort’s. Beside her master, Nagini slithered forward to hiss disdainfully at Harry.

He was backed up against the wall. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

“Prepare for pain, Harry Potter,” Voldemort hissed.

Harry braced himself for what he knew was coming.

“Crucio!”

The pain coursed through his body, sending him falling to the ground, writhing in pain. When Voldemort finally lowered the spell, Harry took a deep breath, trying to control his panting.

“Pathetic,” Voldemort mocked. “The Great Harry Potter, the Chosen One. If only the wizarding world could see you now.”

He raised his wand again, and this time, Harry knew it would be for the last time.

Voldemort began the incantation. “Avad-”

And then an arrow hissed down the hallway, bursting first through Nagini’s flesh, and then embedding itself in Voldemort’s chest. He looked down in shock at the end of the arrow sticking out of his chest.

He laughed. “You think to kill me? Me, Lord Voldemort?”

“Yes,” Terence said from down the hallway. He was standing in the middle of the hallway lowering a bow, looking for all the world like he had never been painted. “And since your horcruxes are all gone, that should do the trick.”

Voldemort looked down at the arrow in shock, and for the first time, noticed that the world around him was growing dark.

“You can’t kill me. You can’t-” and then his body fell to the floor.

Harry stared at it in shock. “Is he...dead?”

Terence moved forward, pulling another arrow from his quiver and poking Voldemort with it. “It sure seems that way.”

“But how?”

Terence shrugged. “His horcruxes are gone. Nagini was the last one, and I got her right before I shot him.”

“No, how are you here? You’re not in a painting. You’re...actually here. With an actual physical body.” Harry reached out as if to poke him, but drew his hand back before he could actually touch him. “Are you a ghost? But you still have a body? But how did you shoot him? What?”

Terence smiled mysteriously. “Magic.”

“But you were a painting!”

“It was not a normal painting. Most magical paintings contain memories, traces of their subject. My painting was a stasis spell. I was frozen in a moment of time, so to speak.”

“You were frozen?”

“Not literally. I was in a state of suspended animation. Time passed differently for me than it did for the rest of the world. There’s not really a good way to explain it, and to be honest, I don’t completely understand it myself. I wasn’t the one to cast the spell.”

Harry stared at him. “So you’re still alive?”

Terence nodded.

“How long were you in that painting? And why?”

Terence shrugged. “I lost track of how long it was. Like I said, time moved differently for me. As to why... well, I was waiting for something.”

“And you’re not waiting anymore?”

Terence smiled. “I have a feeling that what I’ve been waiting for has already been set in motion.”

“Oh,” was all Harry said in response to that. “So what are you going to do now? I bet you would make a great defense teacher. I think there’s an opening.”

Terence gave a rueful smile. “Unfortunately, I know very little actual magic myself. I doubt I’d be of much use as a magic teacher. But if you don’t mind, I think I’d would like to stay at Hogwarts for a while. I am sure that Severus could use some help cleaning up the mess left from Riddle’s pet death eaters.”

Harry grimaced. “I’d forgotten about Snape again.”

Terence chuckled. “I can’t imagine he’ll be too pleased about your little adventure tonight.” Despite his light tone, there was a hint of reproach in his eyes. Harry winced.

“I should go find Ron and Hermione,” he said. As Harry turned back to go find his friends, he paused to look back at Terence. “You’re from Camelot, aren’t you?” he asked.

Terence smiled. “Yes.”

“You said you were waiting for something. Is King Arthur coming back?” Even Harry had heard stories of King Arthur and how he was prophesied to return.

Terence smiled the mysterious smile that Harry was beginning to realize was his trademark. “Sorry, Harry, you’re just going to have to wait and see. But I can promise you that the next couple decades definitely won’t be boring.”

From a painting on the wall, Luneta snorted. “That’s an understatement.”


End file.
